Yearly market projections for electronic display devices over the next five to ten years are in the tens of billions of dollars, with $20 billion anticipated in liquid crystal display (LCD) sales alone. In the same timeframe, it is expected that the market for Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) will be in the range of $700 million to $3 billion annually.
OLEDs are generally anticipated to overtake LCDs as the preferred display technology. This is expected because OLEDs enjoy a number of practical advantages over LCDs. Some of the most significant advantages include: 1) OLEDs project a brighter image that can be viewed from wider angles; 2) OLEDs do not require the backlight required in LCDs, which lowers the cost of manufacturing, increases reliability of performance, and improves the image intensity range, contrast, and consistency over the viewing area; 3) OLEDs require less power for equivalent image quality; 4) OLEDs are projected to be less expensive to manufacture, requiring fewer materials and roughly half the number of manufacturing steps; 5) OLEDs are designed to have a longer lifetime based on power requirements; and 6) OLEDs produce a wider spectrum of colors.
As a result, manufacturing OLEDs has become an emerging field of interest. As part of the OLED manufacturing process, circuitry such as thin-film transistors (TFTs) is built on the OLED device to drive the OLED, similar to other display devices. Patterning layers of organic thin film material is one of the specific manufacturing needs to accomplish this. Although the semiconductor industry has developed photolithography and etching methods for silicon wafers, these semiconductor-based methods are not viable for patterning organic materials because (1) the chemistries may be damaging to the organic materials, (2) OLEDs cannot be subjected to semiconductor vacuum processes, and/or (3) the variety of chemistries required for multiple layers may be too expensive to use, or moreover, may not exist. This is particularly true when the substrate in consideration consists of many thin layers of different types of materials. Therefore there exists a need for methods that support fabrication processes and standards for next generation organic electronic devices, for example for flexible displays.
A method of patterning organic layers on a multi-layered structure using multiple chemistry processes is found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,080,529A, entitled, “A Method Of Etching Patterned Layers Useful As Masking During Subsequent Etching Or For Damascene Structures.” However, using multiple chemistries for patterning multi-layered material both adds process steps, and is expensive. In addition, a specific chemistry is selected to be effective on a specific material, and lacks versatility across multiple layers and substrates. Thus this approach both reduces the overall profitability for manufacturing the device and the ability to use the approach on other materials. Therefore there is a need to provide a method of patterning thin film material that does not require multiple and costly semiconductor etches and pattern chemistries to achieve ablation. Further there is a need to provide a method of patterning thin film material that is more versatile than conventional methods.
A method of fabricating an electroluminescent (EL) display is found in U.S. Patent Application 20030186078, entitled “Red-Green-Blue (RGB) Patterning Of Organic Light-Emitting Devices Using Photo-Bleachable Emitters Dispersed In A Common Host.” The '078 patent describes a method of fabricating organic EL displays with simplified light emitting device (LED) structures. One embodiment of the '078 patent uses a laser ablation technique to ablate away undesired organic and electrode layers patterning discrete RGB pixels adjacent to each other on the same substrate. However, the '078 patent fails to alleviate some problems with laser ablation techniques on organic thin films. For example, underlying layers are often damaged during laser ablation of multi-layered organic thin films, especially when the layer thickness approaches the laser wavelength. The confocal parameter (i.e. depth of focus) determines the extent in the direction of beam propagation where the focused laser beam is the most intensive. Due to the diffraction limit, the confocal parameter can not be less than 0.78 times the laser's wavelength (0.78λ) while the smallest possible beam size is 0.5λ. All the material, within 0.78λ of the focus will experience approximately the same laser intensity if the strong absorption is absent. It is particularly true when the top layer is to be ablated away, and the underlying layer will be fully exposed during the process. Note, strong absorption is defined as the outermost layer absorbing greater than 50% of the transmitted laser beam's energy. Also, focus is defined as the focal point of the laser beam.
Therefore, there exists a need to pattern multi-layered organic thin films without damaging underlying layers.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide methods that support fabrication processes and standards for next generation organic electronic devices.
It is another object of the invention to provide a method of patterning multi-layered organic thin films that does not require multiple and costly semiconductor etch and pattern chemistries to achieve ablation.
It is another object of the invention to provide a method of patterning thin film material that is more versatile than conventional methods.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a method of patterning multi-layered organic thin films without damaging underlying layers.